


B.B.D.

by Littlefruit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dog Bather, Gen, Squib, dog grooming, muggle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22902916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlefruit/pseuds/Littlefruit
Summary: This is a fic that I made mostly to vent about my job as a dog bather. I had fun with it, and I hope you do too! Apologies in advance for any formatting bugs from transferring it over to AO3, or overly long technical descriptions.Summary: A huge black dog turns up in a Hogsmeade-adjacent village and gets taken to a pet store/grooming salon for a freshen-up. Is there something a little weird about this dog? Our main character will find out!
Kudos: 2





	1. Doggone

“Vanessa, dear. We have _one_ more thing for you today before you clean up, if you don’t mind?”

Vanessa backed halfway out of a large kennel she had been cleaning, and looked over her shoulder at the person speaking. The manager of Bubble Hounds Pet Shop and Salon, Beth, was standing in the doorway leading from the pet shop storefront into the grooming salon. She held a leash in her hand. Whatever was on the other end of the leash was standing out of sight, beyond the doorway to the salon and in the shop front.

“Of course,” Vanessa replied measuredly. She pivoted out of the kennel, and rose up with cracking knees. “Is it a nail trim?”

Beth chuckled mischievously. She jiggled the leash in her hand. “Not quite! Poor baby came in itching something awful, covered in dust and dirt and who knows what. They found him half dead in a skip!”

“A skip??”

“Oh, the big bins,” Beth specified. I think you’ll have a different word for them. Dumper? Dump...”

“Oh,” Vanesssa said. “A dumpster?”

“Yes, that’s it! Dumpster, hah! How American. Anyway, he was in a _dumpster_ , poor lad. They said he must have used the last of his strength climbing in, too weak to climb back out.”

The dog at the end of the leash did not make any noise or movements.

“Oh,” Vanessa said. “A neglect case.”

Beth put on a forced sheepish look.

“I know, another off-schedule appointment. Sorry, dear. But he really needs help. You want to help him, don’t you?”  
“Of course,” Vanessa said tersely. She was livid. Beth was acting as though the issue was her not wanting to ‘help’ a dog. Sometimes, these dogs pulled in for a ‘rescue groom’ couldn’t even stand from exhaustion. Vanessa thought that whoever carted around these neglected dogs should get them veterinary attention and a chance for rest before taking them for a bath. However, it was not her decision to make. She was paid to show up and tend to whatever dog was put in front of her. “Of course I want to help a dog.”

“Good! Then I’ll just put him in that one,” Beth said with a nod toward the kennel Vanessa had just cleaned. “Come, come, handsome man!”

Vanessa turned away and closed her eyes for a moment in hopes that she would not roll them right in Beth’s face. Beth stepped over the salon threshold. The leash tautened behind her as she charged on, unworried about dragging the dog around by its neck on a slip lead.

When the dog finally came into Vanessa’s sight, it really was a sad sight to see. He was a massive animal, but looked feeble being pulled around by his head. He was also clearly emaciated, which could be seen through his greasy black fur. Vanessa felt awful for him. She hated to see dogs like this, but they appeared at even the nicest grooming salons with surprising frequency. Some of the posh families who patronized the high-end salon Vanessa had worked for in Los Angeles had brought in dogs just as badly neglected as this one. She was starting to get burned out, seeing dog after dog come in infested with fleas or tortured with tight mats.

The dog that walked in was balding in patches around the hips, and dragged his overgrown nails on the floor as he strode. His head would probably have been hanging to the ground, too, had Beth not been pulling him around by it. Leaves and mysterious crust could be seen lurking in his hair, and a smell like spoiled meat and old banana peel wafted off of him.

“You know,” Vanessa said quickly, “You can actually just help me put him right in the tub, please.” She swung the kennel door closed with a clatter. “I don’t think I can get him up in there by myself.”

Beth gave Vanessa a look.

“You want to pick him up and put him in? Not the ramp?”

“I don’t think he has the strength to use the ramp,” Vanessa said. “Poor thing. Doesn’t look like he can even walk ten more steps.”

“That’s true,” Beth admitted. She gave the dog a pitying pat on his head. Her whole palm could rest in the middle of his forehead and avoid touching either eye. “Here goes it. Up and over.”   
Vanessa and Beth circled around the dog awkwardly, trying to figure out how to team lift. Vanessa had a good routine for this with the usual groomer, Rebecca. Beth on the other hand wasn’t typically around to put dogs in the raised bathtub. She was only helping now because, since there weren’t supposed to be any more dogs on schedule for the day, Rebecca had already gone home.

Eventually, they managed to lift the dog with some semblance of unity, and he made it most of the way into the tub.

“Thought for sure he was gonna kick and cry,” Beth panted. “He don’t look like anyone’s owned him, cared for him, his whole life.”

“He doesn’t have the energy, I guess.” Vanessa hurried to help a front leg over the side of the tub that hadn’t quite made it in. “Did you feel his ribs? He’s a skeleton, poor thing!”

“Heavy bones, then! Yeah. Poor wee thing. Well, not so wee. But poor baby, skin and bones as he is.”

They both looked at the dog for a moment, just taking in his poor condition. They had both seen the leaves and twigs stuck in his wiry coat, but from touching him they were confronted with a few spots of unidentifiable stickiness. The smell was not any better up close. More than just physically neglected, though, he looked mentally defeated as well. He was hunched, head hanging over the front of the tub and flank pressed to the back. He did not make eye contact with either Beth or Vanessa, but rather stared blankly into some faraway space.

“He is just tremendous,” Beth commented. “And dirty. God, so dirty. Expect the works. He was a bit sticky on my side, don’t know if you got any on you.” She shook her head. “Well. I’m going to wash my arms up to the elbows. I really must get back to tending the front. Ta.”

Vanessa looked at the dog again, trying to make eye contact. She offered him her hand to sniff, not expecting much reaction. She was right.

“Poor bastard,” she said candidly as soon as Beth was out of earshot. She slipped a grooming loop over his head. It was secured with a metal clip to the back of the bathtub. She tightened a sliding adjuster to secure him, with care not to pull his hair into the slider.

“I would do the usual thing and start calling your owners dickheads for letting you get like this, but I’m guessing you haven’t had any owners for a while.”

She sighed and then pulled out three mixing bottles for shampoo and conditioner from a metal basket on the wall-side of the tub.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to mix up some more shampoo. Rocket was supposed to be the last dog of the day. Not that Beth or anyone else cares.” Vanessa selected a gallon of degreasing shampoo rather than the gentler daily shampoo she usually used. “You need the strong stuff, dude. If Rebecca was here, you would be getting dish soap all over. In the ears and everything.” She poured some thick, goopy citrus-scented shampoo concentrate into two of the mixing bottles. “But luckily for you, I am not Rebecca.” Mostly, Vanessa spoke to keep herself sane, but she thought the dogs might benefit from having someone speak soothingly to them during the scary ordeal of bath time. The dog in the tub now did not have any visible reaction to her words, but that was usual. Dogs unused to being bathed typically froze in place, not knowing what to expect or how to react.

Vanessa zoned out a bit during the eternity that it took to funnel water into the shampoo mixing bottles. Why did they have a funnel with such a tiny spout? Eventually, Vanessa had mixed up two bottles of shampoo and one of conditioner. She let the dog smell the bottles before she used them, and was pleased when he halfheartedly sniffed the conditioner.

“The lemony one is a bit much, isn’t it, boy? Or should I call you... Ah. Right. You don’t have a name. That we know of.” The dog did nothing as Vanessa began to work shampoo into the hair around his ears and jaw. “I gotta call you something other than ‘boy.’”

She scrubbed his ears and thought. “Okay, not too much flea crud so far. Awesome. I’m not a fan of the delicate mingled aromas of dog blood and lemon soap. Uhh, so a name. Well. You’re a big, black dog.” She squirted shampoo all up and down his back, like squeezing mustard onto a giant hot dog. “A big, black dog… B. B. D? What do you think?”

The dog did nothing.

“Okay, BBD it is. I’m too tired to think of anything else today.”

The bath went on, Vanessa scrubbing dutifully and then rinsing a little bit off at a time. Her back hurt from the long day she had already had, and water dripped into her armpits when she had to reach her arms up to rinse his back. She took a moment to wipe her arms with a towel and blew a puff of air sideways from her mouth.

“You were not supposed to be here, BBD.” She got promptly back to work, applying shampoo to the top of his head. “14 dogs on the schedule for me today, and then in walks this big fucking horse. No offense. How is that even fair?” BBD pulled up his head and tried to turn away as she began to massage shampoo onto his whiskers.

“Hey, settle down. You do not want this in your eyes. I know, you don’t even know me and I’m touching your mouth. Very scary. But you really need to get clean.

She kept the babbling to a minimum for the rest of BBD’s first shampooing, only saying the occasional “good boy” or “turn around.” He cringed when knotted-in debris was pulled out, and reacted ticklishly to his toes being cleaned, but otherwise behaved excellently.

The conditioner went in easily, but rinsing out took quite a while.

“Sorry. We don’t have the best water heater. Bear with the chill and you’ll be done. I don’t think you really need a third shampoo, but I am just going to come back to your feet and give them another scrub.“ Vanessa tilted her head curiously when BBD sighed and danced around in place, lifting and then pressing his paws down onto the tub grate.

“Do you know the word ‘feet’?” Vanessa wondered, puzzled. “I swear you understood that.”

The rest of the bath was mostly uneventful. He groaned a little about his feet being washed again, but Vanessa was actually happy about his complaints.

“You finally perked up a little, huh? Just to be delicate about the feet, but you did. I like that better than the thousand-yard stare.”

She looked at his eyes for a while. “How do you have those silver eyes like that? I’ve never seen any dog with eyes like that. Not in all the time I’ve been working here, or anywhere else.”

Vanessa picked up a towel from the bottom shelf of a side cart by the tub, and wrapped BBD’s face in it. She rubbed vigorously but gently, getting his wiry moustache and eyebrows as dry as she could.

“This is my favorite part,” she said as she moved the towel up to use a drier spot, and continued rubbing. “I take this towel off, and your face is going to be so fluffy. Just a little bit more. Got to get the ears, hold your horses. Okay, voila!” Vanessa finally let his face be free from the towel, and immediately backed up a few feet and lifted the towel up in front of her like a long shield. When she peeked over the top for a moment, BBD looked her in the eye and then looked away.

“Hey! Nice to finally meet you, clean BBD!”

BBD shook his head, and the shake traveled along his whole body until his long tail was banging loudly against the tub walls. Vanessa was still standing with the towel raised up, and it kept some of the shaken water off of her. Some.

“Good shake! Ready to towel off some more?”

After a couple of minutes of very thorough towel drying, BBD was looking and smelling very much improved. His towel-dried fur of made him look like a clean, fuzzy duckling. He was obviously tired, though. Standing for as long as he had stood for the bath was probably only possible due to the stress of being in a strange place. Vanessa picked up a clean slip lead from the side cart and put it over his head. Only after he was leashed did she loosen and remove the loop that had kept him secure in the bathtub. Forgetting to put the slip lead on before loosening the loop was a somewhat common mistake, but it meant that the dog might notice its new freedom and make a run for the door. The tired specimen in the tub right now was probably not much of a flight risk, but it was always better to be cautious.

“Okay, I have a big mission for you, BBD. I know it’s going to be hard, but do you think you can come down the ramp? Oh, wait.”

She grabbed two of the towels she had used to dry him and spread them out on the floor.

“Okay. Now we can try it. You just have to get out of the tub and then you can lie down right there. You ran me out of towels, or I would have put a dry one down. Sorry.”

Vanessa lifted a metal sheet from its place at the front of the tub, and revealed an opening in the tub wall that was meant for dogs to go in and out. He went down it wit ease and found the least damp spot on the towels and dropped down.

“I think we both need a moment,” Vanessa sighed as she dried her face and arms with a towel. Her clothes were wet from BBD shaking water out of his coat, although he had politely stopped shaking when Vanessa growled in frustration. She was not above hissing like a furious cat, if a dog was being really insubordinate, but it didn’t get nearly to that point with BBD. He was very good for his bath, Vanessa assumed because he was too tired to struggle much. As if on cue, BBD sighed a big sigh through his nose. Vanessa was tired, too. She wished he could just be done and go home, but there was no one else to finish taking care of BBD.

She went over to the drying table and leaned against the edge. She had two options. One was to put BBD in a kennel and turn a kennel dryer on him, which would give her about thirty minutes to just rest and relax her aching muscles. But it would also add about thirty minutes to her already very long day. The other was to force dry him right away, which would be faster. Vanessa sighed again. Half an hour earlier to go home, and it was already early evening. But couldn’t she just lie down on the table here for a moment? She would fit…

She considered it, but thought it wouldn’t be worth the struggle to get back up again. She groaned dramatically, and BBD’s ears twitched.

“Okay, it’s time.” Vanessa said as she hopped off of the table. BBD raised his head. “Up. Come on,” she implored. BBD put his head back down. “Stand!”

She pointed at the drying table in front of BBD imperiously.

“Get. Up. Go! Jump up! Giddyup! I’m not saying that last one because I’m from Texas. I’m making fun of movie-Texas talk. We don’t really say ‘giddyup,’ okay? Just get up! Come on!”

BBD rolled his eyes in the way that dogs do, and then started to stir.

“Oh, wait! I have an idea! Stay right there.”

BBD obediently collapsed back into a relaxed sprawl, and Vanessa hurried over to a little cabinet in a far corner of the salon. The cabinet held her personal belongings, including a small purse. She retrieve a somewhat crumpled banknote from the smallest pocket, all while keeping an eye on BBD.

“Stay,” she commanded as she went back to him and took hold of his slip lead. She looped it over the knob of the drying table arm. Vanessa knew that this dog could easily drag the entire table down the street and back if he was at full strength, but at the moment he seemed really quite content to just lie on the floor. It was probably fine to leave him for just a minute. She went with her money and exited to the shop front, closing the salon door behind her.

Beth was among the shop merchandise, standing over a box and writing things about its contents onto a clipboard. Vanessa had no idea what Beth’s duties were exactly, but she was assuming it was some kind of inventory check. The teenage girl at the register, Nour, was sitting on the stool behind the counter and reading a comic book. Vanessa made a beeline for the dog treats and picked out a squeezable pouch of meat pate in gravy. She looked at it for a little bit, wondering if BBD would like it, and then made her way to the counter.

“Can I get this, Nour?”

“Buying dog food?” she asked excitedly. “Did you get a dog? Aww!”

“No, no, I don’t think there’s room for another dog in the cottage. This is for the dog in the back. Did you see him come through?”

Nour’s eyes got huge.

“See him? You could hardly miss him! He’s about the size of a bus.”

“Yeah. He’s all ribs sticking out and bony hips. I think they said they found him eating trash? I know most dogs don’t usually feel up to eating when they’re in for a bath, but I feel so bad. He has no energy, his gums are white. I want to see if he’ll at least maybe lick up some of the gravy.”

Nour had rung up the pate and was giving back change as she nodded eagerly.

“I saw, he’s definitely starving. I hope he does eat it. How was he for the bath? Here you go.”

“Thanks. He was really good! Better behaved than I expected for sure. I hope it’s not just because he has no fight left in him anymore. I want to see him perk up a bit.”

“Well, good luck!” Nour offered a genuine smile. “I want to come see him when he’s done!”

-

When Vanessa returned to BBD, he was in the exact same spot she had left him. She was glad that he hadn’t tried to escape or make a mess of the salon, but also discouraged that he hadn’t even moved at all. She really hoped the food would get his energy up at least a little. She gave him a smile and lifted the pouch to tear open a corner. BBD’s eyebrows raised hopefully and his nose wiggled as he sniffed the air.

“Yeah, it’s food! You want foodsies?” Vanessa baby talked to him and his tail thumped twice on the floor as he lifted his head in anticipation. She crouched down to give him the pate, and he eagerly licked it as it squeezed out of the pouch. “Here, I’m just going to put it on the towel and you can lick it off. There. There you go! Good boy.”

BBD immediately devoured all of the contents of the pouch and was licking the towel. Cautiously, Vanessa reached a hand out. She held it far enough away that he could not bite it if he lunged for it, and waited for a reaction. He looked at her hand and accepted its presence, continuing to lick the towel. She gently petted his forehead and said some sweet nonsense to him. He licked his lips several times, and looked at Vanessa for a moment. With those strange gray eyes, it seemed like there was something supernatural about him, more than just a common animal. The look he gave her had been an assessment, but also perhaps a kind of communication. Vanessa would like to have believed that it was a ‘thank you’ for taking care of him. But when he looked away, the mystical appearance was gone. He was just a big, black dog.

-

Drying time followed a short break for both Vanessa and the dog after the long bath and towel-drying experience. It went as well as it possibly could. Vanessa did have to enlist Beth’s help to lift BBD onto the drying table when a second pouch of pate failed to lure him into standing, and he was unsteady on the table. After some reassurances and praise for being such a good boy thus far, Vanessa plugged his ears with cotton balls and turned the dryer on. He did not react much, so she turned the nozzle onto his flank. He stood stoic as a statue as the air blasted his fur. Many pats were given, and slowly but surely BBD got on his way to getting dry.

It took about forty-five minutes, with two breaks in between, for Vanessa to give up. Her arms got tired from reaching over her head to dry his back, and the dryer got overly hot a few times. Along his spine was still slightly damp in some spots, as well as some very sunken and bony parts that Vanessa just felt too bad to linger over with the forceful air current. Rebecca would have come in and finished drying for Vanessa if she were here. She also might have insisted on Vanessa drying his tail, which Vanessa hated doing. But Rebecca was not here, and Vanessa was at work two hours past shift on a very long day. She really, really wanted to go home and get some food and rest.

“BBD, what do you say we throw you in the kennel and let the kennel drier take care of the rest?”

BBD did not respond, other than to pant where he sat. Vanessa felt badly for him. Even just standing for a few minutes on and off during the drying process must be taxing for him, in his emaciated condition. She petted him down his back a few times and leaned over the table to touch her head to his. She had gotten a good sense by now that he was okay with being reached over and maneuvered, so she gave him a chance to lean his right shoulder against her head. It took a moment, but he eventually did relax somewhat into a lean. She continued to pet him, and scratched his chest. He wagged his tail a few times, enjoying the attention.

In a short time, maybe half a minute, Vanessa gave him a couple of firm pats and let him take his weight back.

“You can stay sitting,” she said in a soothing tone. “I’m just going to do a little brushing. You don’t need much. Then we can do your nails and teeth, then we’re done. Good boy.”

BBD blinked a few times. He seemed to be getting sleepy.

“I have an idea. Hang on.”

Vanessa turned a crank on the drying table arm, and let the height start to drop slowly. BBD, feeling more slack on the loop, let his shoulders sink down. As the bar lowered more, he continued to slide until he was lying down like a sphinx. His long tail dangled off the edge of the table.

“There you go,” Vanessa said. “You can relax. Sleepy boy. I’ll do your teeth first, hang on right there.”

She cleaned his teeth, which he hated as much as every other dog that had it done. Then she brushed his fur with a slicker brush, taking care not to scrape his bony spots with the metal bristles. His fur was not long enough to tangle very badly, and she was able to brush him quickly and without pulling on too many tangles. She then put away her brush and exchanged it for a pair of pet nail trimmers. With her right hand, she petted the back of BBD’s right front leg. Then she grabbed his paw and lifted it, trying not to handle it in a way that would make him feel too ticklish. She assumed a safe stance, face held away from the bite zone. One could never be too cautious when handling a strange dog.

“Ready, BBD?” She positioned the nail clippers around a huge pinkie toe claw. All of his claws were scuffed on the tops from him dragging his feet when he walked. “This is going to be okay, baby.” She squeezed the clippers while she spoke, trying to cover up as much of the cracking sound as possible. BBD did great, considering the probability that he had never had his nails taken care of in his entire life. She kept on, and eventually she had clipped all of his claws in front. She had gone behind him to clip his back claws when she heard the salon door swing open. She took the distraction as a chance to clip a dewclaw without him noticing, and then ducked her head to get a line of sight under his body at who had just come in.

“Oh, look at him!” A woman with short yellow hair and coral-colored lipstick cried out with delight. “He looks a hundred times better!”

“A hundred times better,” Beth echoed. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Vanessa saw the woman, whose voice she recognized from other rescued dogs being dropped off at the salon previously. Beth and Nour were also in the room. They all looked excited. Vanessa had to agree, BBD did look great. Not only was he already just much cleaner-looking, but fluffing up his fur with the force dryer hid some of his boniness and made him look a bit healthier.

“Well, I’ll take him,” the woman said as she began picking her way through the tumbleweeds of dog hair that littered the salon floor.

“Oh, Tara, I don’t think--“ Beth interjected, but she determinedly reached BBD and held out her hand in request.

“Er, I don’t think Vanessa’s done with him yet, Tara. Looks like she still has nails to do?”

“Oh, that’s alright,” Tara said. Her eyes locked onto the grooming loop and she grabbed for it. Vanessa watched in seeming slow motion as Tara began to slide the loop loose and BBD figured out that he was about to be freed from the table.

“Wait,” Vanessa said, but Tara had already begun to speak over her in Beth’s direction. Angrily.

“You have your bather trimming his DEWCLAWS?” she accused. “He needs them, dogs NEED their dewclaws for traction--“

Traction, he had. As Tara removed the loop from around BBD’s neck while berating Beth, BBD ducked his head and launched powerfully past Tara. It was a display of athleticism that only a desperate animal could manage. He whizzed past Beth and Nour, and there was a great commotion as everyone reacted a beat too late. Despite the panic of the moment, Vanessa found it kind of funny that the humans had such slower reflexes than dogs. BBD was already out the salon door when Beth and Nour reached out their arms to catch him. Tara squawked. Vanessa stood frozen, slightly experiencing an out of body situation, nail clippers still in hand. Beth said “Get him!” and pushed past Nour after him. Nour quickly followed, and they were both out of Vanessa’s sight.

Vanessa realized that she should probably do something.

Snapping back into current reality, she dropped the nail clippers on the table and dashed out after them all. She could hear Tara behind her saying something about not knowing to expect this. Beth and Nour had split up around an aisle divider, but Vanessa couldn’t see where BBD had gone. She thought he must be at the front of the store.

They all heard a pleasant chime as the front door opened.

“No!” both Beth and Nour shouted.

BBD must run best on adrenaline, Vanessa thought as she watched his dark silhouette disappear down the street through the shop windows. She could see him like a flitting shadow through the frosted glass, but oddly high up. Had she not known better, she would have said that it was a hunched human figure running past the windows, not a dog. It had to have been him, however, because as everyone discovered colliding around the aisle divider, there was no black dog in the building. Only the front door swinging back into a closed position.

“What happened?!” Tara shrieked.

Nour reached the door before it finished closing, and ran out. Beth almost ran out too, but then stopped herself in the doorway. Vanessa was quickly over her shoulder, looking out. Nour had run in the direction that they had all seen BBD run, but she was spinning on the spot looking for him. She had clearly lost sight of him.

Beth put her hands on either side of her head like the Scream painting. Nour looked towards the shop with a tragic expression. Nobody seemed sure of what to say or do in that moment. Vanessa knew that this shop had never had a groom dog escape before. She just couldn’t believe that BBD had been so fast. And, she asked herself, how did he open the door?

The silence and helplessness of the moment was unbearable. They had lost a dog.


	2. Dogfight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BBD has left the building. 
> 
> At least the shift is over and Vanessa can get home and get some rest, right?

The silence and helplessness of the moment was unbearable. They had lost a dog.

“I didn’t know you didn’t have him on a lead!” Tara screamed.

Vanessa turned around, looking bewilderedly at Tara. She was standing by the front counter, leaning on it with her hip and both arms as if feeling weak. Tara’s eyes were huge as she raged, “I thought you would have him on a lead! What kind of safety protocol is that, having the dog off-lead on the table? I’d NEVER!”

Vanessa started to stammer, intimidated, but Beth spoke up for her.

“Tara, she had the noose on him.”

“Well, yeah-- Well! She should have had him on a lead, too. That’s not safe. Look what’s happened!”

Nour started walking out away from the shops while this went on.

“Nour!” Vanessa shouted. Beth turned to look and saw Nour wandering off into the evening.

“It’s almost night, Nour, get back!” Beth called. Nour looked one more time in the direction BBD had been seen sprinting, and then turned and jogged back to the shop.

“Maybe Tara and her volunteers can find him tomorrow morning,” Beth said. “I can’t let you go out on the street at night.”

“But he’s ran away,” Nour said. “Aren’t-- Shouldn’t we do something?”

Tara shoved past Vanessa with her shoulder and out the door past Beth.

“I’ll tell you what SHOULD have been done,” she fumed. “That dog should have been ON. A. LEAD. I will most definitely be reporting your shop to a higher authority.” She rummaged in her big handbag for her car keys, and stomped towards her car. “Hacking off dewclaws, letting dogs dart out the door. Unbelievable, is what it is!”

Beth tried to cut in with a defense, but Tara bulldozed over her.

“And now that poor dog is RUINED. He will NEVER trust a human again, and-- who knows if he’ll even ever be FOUND again? Someone could shoot him, there are men with rifles for hunting! They’ll think he’s a wolf and kill him!” Vanessa thought she saw a bit of froth fly from the corner of Tara’s lips, but it could have been a trick of the light. Tara got into her car and slammed the door, then turned it on so that she could crank down the window and yell some more. “Thirty years I have been rescuing dogs, and I have NEVER. I have never seen such incompetence.”

“Tara, now just you wait--“ Beth began.

“I hope you send that little American girl of yours back to whatever barnyard she came from! She is responsible! Good BYE!”

It took an awkward amount of time for her car window to crank back up all the way. For those brief moments, nobody from Bubble Hounds seemed to know what to say. But as they watched her pull back to leave the shop parking, Beth scoffed.

“Cor.”

Vanessa stood by the doorway, looking wide-eyed and petrified as a wooden owl.

“Good-ness,” Nour chimed in.

“Oh, Vanessa, dear.” Beth came over and gestured for everyone to step inside the shop. “Don’t mind any of that all. She’s always a bit of a high-strung, crazy bitch with her rescues, you see. Remember the Maltese that she lost her mind over when Rebecca trimmed his beard short?”

Vanessa walked into the shop and wrung her hands. Nour followed in and let the door close behind them with a jingle that felt too cheery for the moment.

“I don’t think I was here for that,” Vanessa answered Beth.

“Oh, right. Well, she about crawled up the walls when she saw the clip Rebecca gave this filthy, matted Maltese. The dog had to be shorn to the skin and had big, black bruises all over, but Tara got one beady little eye of hers on the short beard and had a heart attack about ‘ruining’ the dog’s look. She’s a big fan of that phrase. Hardly think a dog is ‘ruined’ from losing some hair that will grow back.”

“Yeah, but I lost the whole dog,” Vanessa was quick to reply. “Bit different.”

Beth shook her head sympathetically.

“No, dear. You didn’t do anything. She took that dog off the noose with the door wide open. That was totally her fault.”

“Yeah,” Nour piped up. “We all saw it. What did she expect?”

“Right? I can’t believe she did that,” Beth laughed. “What _did_ she expect? Him to jump lovingly into her arms? Sing her a song?”

“Yeah, I guess she thought he had a lead and the loop on,” said Vanessa. “I don’t have to have a dog on the grooming loop _and_ on a slip lead, right?” Vanessa asked.

“Of course not! That’s bloody stupid. Why would you need two ropes on a dog at once?”

“For when madwomen come into the salon and try to dognap them,” Nour joked.

Vanessa put her face in her hands, but Beth just shook her head and laughed.

“I honestly feel bad that that dog got away, but I am going to be having a good laugh about the way she just let him loose and off he went. Well, I’ll be laughing later. It’s a bit soon now.”

“Ugh,” Vanessa groaned. “That dog needed to be seen by a vet. I wish I had jumped in and, I don’t know, held him back. Given everyone else a chance to catch him.”

“It’s okay,” Beth said. “Nobody really saw that coming. I had no idea Tara was going to let him free.”

“Yeah, I--“

“Look,” Beth said. “We’ll be hearing from Tara again tomorrow. It’s getting dark, and I know you walk home. I can leave Nour with the shop for a bit and drive you home. I have some things to do but it can wait a bit.”

“Oh, thank you,” Vanessa said. “But I haven’t cleaned up anything in the back, there’s fur everywhere. The tub needs to be cleaned, the shampoo--“

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll all be there tomorrow. Let me take you, don’t you only live a stone’s throw away?”

“Yeah, I do. Don’t worry though, I can just walk. It’s not really dark out yet. I think some fresh air would do me good after being in the back room all day, honestly.”

Beth looked relieved to not have to leave her work.

“All right, yes.”

Vanessa nodded, and waited for Beth to say something else. Perhaps, ‘you’ve worked so hard today!’ Perhaps. 

“Well?” she said instead. “All right, off you go. I’ll clock you out for the end of the hour since you did almost finish the dog. Get home.”

“Thanks,” Vanessa said. Close enough.

She made her way back into the salon and opened up the cabinet with her purse and lunch bag. She hadn’t felt she had time to eat her whole lunch earlier in the day because of the packed schedule, so she had left an apple uneaten. She was very thankful for it now, and ripped open the paper bag to get to it. She put it in her mouth, slung the purse strap over her shoulder, and walked out of the salon.

“Bye, Vanessa,” Nour and Beth both said.

“Bye,” Vanessa tried to say while holding an apple in her mouth. She pulled open the door and puzzled over a recurring question as she walked through it.

How _had_ BBD opened the door?

Walking down the streets lined with shops was uneventful, and Vanessa hungrily munched the apple as she went. Luckily, the cottage in which she lived was only about a twenty minutes’ walk or so from the shops if she went at a decent pace. It was possible to half jog, running late and disheveled in the morning, in ten. She wasn’t usually late, though.

That stretch of walking was mostly on the side of a paved road through some forest. It had no sidewalk, but Vanessa preferred walking among the trees anyway. Not as a connection to nature, but rather because she hated the loud sound of cars when they whizzed by. At this time there wasn’t anybody on the road much, but when she walked home at ‘rush hour’ it was nice to have something of a buffer from the loud engines.

As of now, the loudest sound by far was the crunching of her apple. She ate slowly and chewed thoroughly, careful not to choke as she walked. It was better if she didn’t hurry, she thought, but the sky was currently more dark than light. She took another big bite of apple, not much left of it by now, and picked up her pace a bit. Nothing could have prepared her in a meaningful way for what happened next.

Someone slammed into her shoulders from behind. Her throat attempted to gasp and scream at the same time, and she inhaled the half-chewed bite of apple in her mouth as she fell to the ground. She hit the dirt with her forearms first, but crushing weight landed on her back and she was pressed into the earth. Air was forced out of her lungs, and she coughed into the dirt. She took account that whatever was attacking her had just caused her to choke, and then saved her from choking. It was that one of those almost funny thoughts inside of a brutal moment, which a person ends up remembering vividly because it is so pointless. She was pinned by a mysterious assailant, and probably had more to worry about. Her mind rushed through an array of options in a second: A mugger, a rapist, someone she knew, a kidnapper, a--

Then her attacker growled, and any thought vanished from Vanessa’s mind. Cold sweat broke from every pore. That growl was animal, and it was massive. Not once in a thousand nightmares had she ever felt an instinctual terror like she felt now. The sound came from very close behind her head. She closed her eyes, or maybe they had already been closed. Without permission, her body sent her arms and legs flailing out to grip at dirt, as if her brain thought that she was falling. Hard claws dug into the tops of her shoulders, and she scrambled more. Perhaps her hands thought she could dig away. The claws in her shoulders dug deeper, stinging her terribly. She screamed, and bitter soil got in her mouth. And then there was a shift of weight, and a yelp.

A horrible, loud yelp right behind her head. Vanessa always thought there was something disturbing about hearing a large dog scream in pain. A dog? Was that what was on her? The claws and all the weight were lifted off of Vanessa’s torso completely, and she gasped for breath and turned over. She wasn’t sure exactly what her body was doing, but she was less on the ground than she was before. And she saw two bears fighting. Or two wolves fighting. Something like that. The image changed before her eyes as she struggled to comprehend. A jet-black animal was dodging backwards as a grizzled one lunged with a hair-raising snarl. That grayish-brown one was decidedly a wolf. There was no mistaking the canine snarl and slender limbs from a bear’s roar and thick legs. But still it looked somehow _off_ , not quite right for a wolf. Still, it was essentially some kind of dog.

Vanessa worked with dogs. She had survived bathing dogs for eight months without ever once being bitten or scratched to break skin. And there was only one way to do that.

Know when to retreat, and do it very quickly.

Skittering through the dirt, Vanessa got upright and fled the scene. Getting her bearings only by sheer instinct, she began to run for home. She ran as fast as adrenaline could take her, passing through the treeline and finding even footing on the road. She did not look back even once. All she could hear was her hurried breath and a sound like a roaring waterfall in her ears. She ran directly down the middle of the road. Legs and breath, that was all she was for a long, confusing minute.

Then, Vanessa was at the turnoff from the road that led to her cottage. She was but a city block’s distance away from the grinning frog statue that sat guard over the spare key that Vanessa used to get in the house. She had run on autopilot, losing memory to terror for most of the way there. She was nearly home. One turn on this road, and it was a straight shot to the cottage. She passed the lamppost at the start of the cottage row lane, lungs on fire.

Vanessa’s skin prickled, and something made her stop running. She skidded to a halt. Turning around to look back upon the road behind her, she thought she caught the gleam of animal eyes among the trees on the other side. It was just a flash while her eyes were trying to land somewhere else, and by the time her gaze turned back to the spot, it was gone.

She looked for them again. She scanned the area, then turned in a full circle, trying to see what had made her feel like stopping. The more she looked around and found nothing but the usual scenery, the more anxious she began to be. What held her in place was the sense that she had forgotten something important. There was information that had been skipped over somewhere, a scratch in the record of what had happened.

Vanessa stood very still, facing a random direction. The light of the sun was mostly gone. The air was still warm from the day. No breeze could be felt. And… She realized she wasn’t facing a random direction. She was facing the brightest thing in the night sky. Glowing blue-white in the sky before her was a perfectly round moon. Her mind did several leaps of wild computation, and she turned again to face the stretch of woods from which she had seen the gleaming eyes. She thought a preposterous thought and shivered in the stifled air. She thought-- no, knew-- what had attacked her on this full moon’s night. A werewolf.

-

Vanessa had seen strange things in her life. They all came back to her now as she faced something as impossible and unreal as a werewolf. She had seen other animals that weren’t real, or so she was told. She encountered objects and alleyways that had a strange energy to them, and seen trinkets that seemed to have a living presence.

She had seen little bug-winged creatures flying about under a giant, sweeping mesquite tree. Just once, she pointed them out, but the other children insisted that there was nothing there. They called her a liar, or suggested that she must have been imagining butterflies.

She remembered when she was a teenager, a necklace with a red stone that she had seen in an antique shop that let out a blood-curdling scream when she looked at it. She had whipped around to get others’ reactions in the shop, and her mother was placidly looking at knickknacks while the cashier boredly licked his finger to flip page in a novel.

She remembered an alley that she passed by in Lubbock, Texas, that felt nauseating to even look at. She was sure it had a glow, or a pulse of some kind that was telling her to stay away. It held nothing but broken-down cardboard boxes, yet it repelled her like the pushing pole of a magnet.

That handful of memories that could have been entirely make-believe came to Vanessa in this moment, peering into a forest by the light of a full moon. She had such an imagination, didn’t she? But the imprints of claws in her back stung in a very real way. She couldn’t have made that up. The moon, the attack, the wolf that did not quite look like a wolf…

-

Something made a sound in the trees on Vanessa’s side of the road. She turned around to face it, to see what it was. Could the owner of the glowing eyes from the other side have doubled back and crossed the street? Wolves were smart and knew how to stalk their prey. Something that was more than a wolf might know even more. Vanessa swallowed dryly. She should run. She should have kept running all the way home. But she had to see what was in the trees.

From the dark cluster of woods that encroached on the cottage property lane, a shape appeared to Vanessa. It was a block of shadow that stood still among lightly stirred leaves and branches outlined in silver-blue from the moon. Vanessa’s knees went weak. It was a low, but large, shape. Her attacker? She stood, frozen on the spot, stupid. She had no idea why she wouldn’t just turn and run for the cottage. Curiosity wasn’t the problem-- it was something that itched stronger at her mind than that.

Recognition. The dark presence in the trees shifted, and a large head raised up with glinting eyes.

A piercing howl, whiny and strange, broke Vanessa’s focus. It came from the further trees, opposite of the cottage lane’s single lamppost. Vanessa gasped and turned on the spot to run down the long driveway home. The light of the moon was powerfully bright, giving her a shadow as crisp as one she would have under the evening sun. It helped her to see her goal clearly, laser-focusing on the peeling front door to the cottage.

As she got close enough, a shrill yapping exploded from the little home. Closely following was a chain of deeper barking, produced by the veritable pack of dogs that the cottage’s owner called her “children.” Never had a Yorkshire terrier’s yap and a hound’s hair-raising bay sounded so sweet to Vanessa’s ears. The barking escalated in fervor as Vanessa skidded onto the front stoop and desperately overturned the ceramic frog statue. She swiped up the key that had been underneath it, then turned to look behind her, not forgetting the dark dog in the woods. It was nowhere in sight, at least at her quick scan. She fumbled with the keys and painfully scraped her knuckles against the rough brick wall as she tried to unlock the door with her head still turned over her shoulder. She turned to face the lock, and managed to gracefully slide the key home on the first try. She wrenched open the door and barged in, tripping over a blind English bulldog and breaking her fall on a sheepdog mix.

“Van, you’re home late,” Martha the cottage owner called from the master bedroom. The only bedroom.

Vanessa did not reply, breath heaving from running halfway home. She was still struggling in a sea of dogs to get her footing and close the front door. The pack was excited to have her home, and then extra excited to have her on the floor with them. She managed to surge up, using the Louise the sheepdog mix’s back as a booster. Louise was proving a great help to Vanessa tonight.

Vanessa checked if any of the dogs had gotten out when the door was open, and of course one had. And of course, it was Pickle, the blind one. And of course, he was posturing at another dog he smelled outside-- the big, black dog.

And then, with that, it finally clicked for Vanessa.

“Vanessa?” Martha called. Her voice sounded closer, like she was walking out of her room and down the small hallway into the kitchen/entry of the house.

The dog, BBD, stiffened where he stood. And it was him, wasn’t it, Vanessa thought. Him from earlier at Bubble Hounds, and him from the blitz she had just run from.

He was far away, and it was dark out, but he was rather unique in size and looks for a dog. He was large but gracile, like a deerhound, and had the wiry coat to match, but jet-black coloring like Vanessa didn’t usually see in a sighthound. He carried his large head low from exhaustion, and his shoulders now had a bony tension in them that reminded Vanessa of a cat’s crouch.

Pickle rasped a geriatric bark at BBD, and BBD began to back away.

“Wait!” Vanessa cried.

“Vanessa?” Martha asked again, much nearer. The pack had all begun barking as soon as Pickle had started up, and so much was going on in the moment. Nonetheless, BBD seemed to have heard Vanessa’s plea for him to stop. His paws were turning to face away, towards some young trees, but his head was pointed towards the cottage.

“BBD! Come back! C’mere, boy.” Vanessa hooked her foot in Pickle’s twisted elbow and started dragging him backwards, into the house. “It’s all right, come here.”

BBD stayed frozen on the spot, analyzing.

“Oh!” Martha gasped, right behind Vanessa’s shoulder. “Who is that?” she asked admiringly. She snapped her fingers and commanded seven dogs in a single gesture to hurry back into the cottage and take their designated places on the floor and furniture.

Vanessa did not answer Martha’s question. She kept focused on BBD, resolved to get him into shelter. She bent her knees to make herself stand lower and extended a hand out, gentle in posture.

“Come on,” she said soothingly.

Martha, a dog lover for 60-something years, mimed Vanessa without hesitation. “That’s a good dog,” she said with a low, even voice. “Come.”

Vanessa and Martha continued beckoning B.B.D. toward the house. He stood and stared for several seconds, his expression stoic but his ankles visibly wobbling from exhaustion. Martha peered into the house to make sure that all the dogs were in, and then softly shut the door. Seeing the door closed and the dog pack put away, B.B.D. let out a sigh from his nose. Seeming much relieved, he surprised Vanessa by stepping forward. Martha patted her thigh a few times to say, “come along,” and began to walk toward the back of the property. Vanessa followed, knowing where Martha was leading them.

There was a shed at the back of the cottage, the wooden doors rotted into disuse and propped permanently open. On the floor of the shed, Martha had lain out several suspicious old blankets for her dogs to sleep on. They enjoyed lying in the shed on hot days, shaded by the roof but still able to taste the outside air. And if there were ever rats or mice scurrying out of some junk kept inside, all the better for hunting and tracking games. Martha walked past the entrance to the shed, and stopped just beside one of the propped-open doors. Vanessa followed close behind, looking back a couple of times to check if BBD had come. He had.

It took some convincing to get BBD to actually enter the shed, but once he trusted that he would not be trapped or ambushed inside, he gratefully collapsed onto a blanket nearest to the doors.

Vanessa and Martha praised him gently as they backed away. BBD remained splayed on the floor of the shed, not even lifting his head once at their retreat. He was exhausted, clearly, but Vanessa also noted that he must be somewhat trusting of people to not even turn his head to make watch them leave.

Martha picked up on Vanessa’s wavelength as soon as they had gotten back into the house and closed the door.

“That’s no street dog,” Martha said. “Of course, I’ve never seen it around, so that’s obvious I suppose, but I mean that it didn’t waste much time getting cozy.”

Vanessa slumped onto a fur-covered armchair, and winced when her injuries touched the backing. “Yeah,” she gritted out. “I don’t think he was born a stray, either. I think he must be abandoned.”

“He had a name?”

“BBD. That’s just what I called him at work,” Vanessa explained as she loosened the laces on her sneakers. “He came with Tara, found eating trash. No tag, no collar.”

Martha sat on a sofa that took up enough space in the tiny living room that she had to turn sideways to get into the hallway past it. The moment she sunk into the cushion, Heathcliff the Yorkie scurried onto her lap, and Edwin the schnauzer took Heathcliff’s spot. The ritual of the night at Martha’s home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were wondering:
> 
> Yes, Tara is based on a real person. 
> 
> No, I have never lost a dog at work.

**Author's Note:**

> Main character and almost all side characters are Original Characters, created by myself. 
> 
> Sirius Black is the big black dog (gasp!), and the owner of the cottage in which our main character resides is actually based on a character that JK Rowling created, but ended up leaving out of the books. Her name is Mopsy, if you're curious. I have no idea what that's about, as I'm not British and don't know if that's some kind of rude thing to call a person in the nineties or something, so I have changed her name to Martha. She is a muggle.
> 
> I am a big fan of the idea that Sirius took advantage of his dog form to find shelter with dog-loving muggles.
> 
> The werewolf is not supposed to be Greyback, unless it fits into the timeline of the books. If that's the case, or if you just prefer to imagine it that way, then it is totally him. :)


End file.
